JOURNAL #3 Our vibe this year – building community, planting vines, and our biggest gathering yet
How do we create beauty, meaning and impact in the world, and our own lives? I’ve been asking myself this ever since we started our project at Morgado do Quintão, five years ago.
What have I learnt? Just begin. You might not know what or how at first, but the act of thinking about it begins something.
Perhaps you have just a vague feeling of what it is you want to create. But as it solidifies, you get glimpses of what it could be, what impact it could have, and you start to have wild and exciting ideas.
As you start talking to others and taking action, a community forms and those moments you first imagined turn into reality. Friendships are forged, experiences shared, and an energy reverberate as people feel connected, empowered and part of something bigger.
Soon, they want to begin something too.
Creating this kind of impact, beauty and meaning, has been our driving force at MdQ since our own beginning. Now that we have nailed making lovely and meaningful wine, we want to start having a wider impact.
And so, we are beginning a lot this year, with three main priorities – build our community, secure our heritage by planting 20,000 vines, and create the Algarve’s best festival in October.
We hope you will join us for this ride, it’s sure going to be an exciting one, filled with all sorts of beautiful moments.
In terms of community, many of you will already know MdQ as a special, magical kind of place, but we want it to be more – to bring people together through a shared sense of belonging, through experiences that enrich all of our lives. We hope that by doing so, we can inspire all sorts of wonderful ideas and meaningful actions.
For me personally, bringing MdQ back to life has enabled me to develop a deep love of my ancestral land, its heritage and people, and a sense of ‘belonging’ to a people and place for the first time in my life.
When we begin planting thousands more vines, we will quite literally be putting down more roots at MdQ. We have chosen varieties that have historical connections to the Algarve – Crato Branco, Arinto, Manteúdo, Negra Mole – and so every single vine will play its part in preserving the genetic heritage of the region.
The extra 20,000 vines will take us just short of the 27 hectares during MdQ’s heyday, but it’s still an amazing come-back and will mean we’re planting for the future, so that following generations can continue to make and enjoy true Algarve wine.
Our festival, Harfeast, is also gradually coming together, and will culminate the summer by bringing our community together like never before. We envisage it as three days of beautiful wine, food, music, art, ideas and discussions, all held under our olive trees and beside our vines.
This newsletter is also the beginning of us reaching out and inviting you in more – we hope it provides some connection. Please get in touch with us, share ideas, inspirations, connections. We would love to hear from you.
I am full of excitement for what we can achieve, and believe that our little vineyard and community are only just getting started.
Welcome to the MdQ gang.
Filipe
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